VIFF 2018: "The Proposal"

The Proposal (Luis Barragán)

Fellow Geist blogger Kris Rothstein has already written a lengthy and thoughtful review of The Proposal, the documentary film which depicts New York artist Jill Magid's attempts to gain access to the professional archives of Luis Barragán, Mexico’s most famous architect. Like Kris, I first became aware of this fascinating story through a 2016 New Yorker article. Magid describes her documentary film as "a way to elicit dialogue about access to legacy and its proprietary nature." And while this is certainly an important story, one which raises questions about copyright, about access, and artistic legacy, there's more to The Proposal than the director claims.

Magid's description of her film, and the film itself, are simply two in a long series of feints, part of an extended and ongoing battle between Magid and her adversary, Federica Zanco, the woman who (if the stories are to be believed) asked for, and was given, Barragán's entire professional archive, as an engagement gift in 1995.

As such, The Proposal can also be seen as an examination of the ways in which artists—traditionally a powerless and impoverished group—can influence (or try to influence) the decisions of the rich and powerful. According to the evidence presented in The Proposal, both Magid and Zanco are masters of the polite professional letter, the kind of letter which says one thing but often contains a veiled subtext. On Magid's side, her letters politely but persistently press her case, in the hopes of eventually persuade Zanco to make Barragán's professional archive accessible to others (ie to Magid); on Zanco's side: she owns the archive, and since ownership is everything, she politely but persistently rebuffs Magid's entreaties.

While Magid's dialogue with Zanco can be described as a battle of strong wills, her film is also a work of art, in which this battle is portrayed as a public wooing. The dramatic tension in The Proposal is this: will Magid's bag of artistic tricks, her public flattering-cum-shaming of Zanco, have any effect? Will Magid's offer of a diamond ring (in a particularly ghoulish twist, the ring's diamond is man-made, from a portion of Barragán's own ashes) persuade Zanco to finally say yes?

Of course not; or at any rate: not yet. But when have the rich and powerful ever been persuaded by such appeals? Perhaps in a scripted film; never in a documentary.